Written by

Royal Brat is a collaboration between Indianapolis-based Sun King and Three Floyds, brewed in Munster. It will make its debut at Saturday's festival on Georgia Street.

Craft beer around townIt’s a busy weekend for craft beer fans in Indianapolis. Not only does the Sun King CANvitational, a canned craft beer fest, take place on Georgia Street Saturday, but you’ll find other events around town as well. Colorado Tap Takeover

Sun King Brewing Co. has been preaching the gospel of aluminum since they started canning their beers in 2010, and they’re bringing a soapbox to Georgia Street on Saturday.

An “all-star lineup” of breweries will turn the pedestrian mall into a tasting room for CANvitational, the Midwest’s first canned craft beer festival. More than 30 breweries from 16 states will be pouring samples of their beer during the downtown fest.

“We started reaching out to our canning friends in the craft beer world a year or two ago,” said Sun King co-founder Dave Colt, “asking if we did this, would they would come.”

The answer was a resounding yes.

Here’s a six pack of info about canned craft beer and the upcoming fest.

What's the big deal about canned beer?

According to Robinson, it’s all about quality. Craft beer has long been packaged in glass. But cans, he says, win out over bottles because they do a better job protecting beer from two of its greatest enemies -- light and oxygen.

It also takes less fuel to ship cans, and and it costs less to recycle them, said Robinson, “making them an incredibly sustainable packaging choice.”

Big craft brewers like Boston Beer Company, brewers of Samuel Adams, have embraced the can as well.

Good looks and good taste

“Once they started using the entire can to wrap a design around, things got pretty interesting,” said can art fan Russell Phillips. “More and more breweries have been doing that.”

Whether printed on the can, on shrink-wrapped labels or on stickers, craft beer can designs have grabbed consumers’ attention. Phillips’ book Canned: Artwork of the Modern American Beer Can (Schiffer Publishing, $34.99) will be released in February and features nearly 1,000 examples of distinctive beer can design. You can get a preview on the related Pinterest board and Facebook page.

(Page 2 of 3)

More canned beer innovation

Tallgrass Brewing Company of Manhattan, Kan., which has been packaging its beer in cans since 2010, is rolling out a new seasonal brew this week with a textured area on the side of the can -- the better to hold on to, apparently, when you’re fleeing zombies. Zombie Monkie: a Post-Apocalyptic Robust Porter plays up the undead theme. You can check out the video teaser at www.tallgrassbeer.com.

Zombies not your thing? Tallgrass is also bringing 8-Bit, a hoppy American Pale Ale whose cans feature pixilated video game images. It’s been dubbed the official beer of retro gamers.

The canned beer scene has even spawned a side industry -- mobile canning. Several startups in California, Florida and the Pacific Northwest have launched with vans that allow them to bring canning capability directly to small breweries.

So it's a beer fest...so what?

CANvitational isn’t just another chance to sample local beer. It’s an event, say planners, that will help establish Indianapolis as a city that takes its craft beer seriously. Plus, the fact that more than 30 craft breweries are bringing their beer to Indianapolis, and that beer fans are willing to pay $50 or $75 to try them, bodes well for future events.

“From a tourism perspective, activating Georgia Street with an event showcasing independent breweries from across the U.S. will help drive regional tourism,” said Chris Gahl, vice president of marketing and communications with Visit Indy. “We know festivals are triggers, helping tip someone from Chicago, Louisville or Cincinnati into visiting Indy. With the caliber of breweries coming in, each with its own strong following, this event will be a visitor attractant and will help showcase Indy’s own thriving beer scene.”

Thirty-plus breweries, but what to try?

Sun King fans will definitely want to sample Royal Brat, a collaboration with Munster’s Three Floyds Brewing Co. that will make its canned debut at the festival. Four-packs will later be available at both breweries.

(Page 3 of 3)

According to Colt, “it’s a special bitter, but it’s twisted of course because of the two parties involved.”

Twenty of the participating breweries are not distributed locally, so if you want to try something from Hawaii’s Maui Brewing, Minneapolis’ Surly, or Colorado’s Oskar Blues, visit our interactive map to plan your tasting.

Embracing the can

More craft breweries are packaging at least one of their brews in cans, and customers have responded. According to Beverage Industry Magazine, sales of canned craft beer were expected to double in 2013. Here are a few more stats.

2002 — the year Oskar Blues Brewery first released its Dale’s Pale Ale in cans.

20 — the number of U.S. craft breweries that were producing canned beer in 2005.

262 — the number of U.S. craft breweries that are canning at least one beer, as of May 2013 (that’s 9 percent of the country’s 2,360 craft breweries).

2013 — the year Boston Beer Company began producing its Samuel Adams Boston Lager in “Sam Cans.”